what about the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour the chicago teachers union strike is in its third day as some of our nation's public school teachers continue to fight for a better system but what's really going on with this strike and why does fox news have a financial stake in the chicago public school system and it's a once daily take all across america private prison corporations are flooding our jails and inmates and cutting back on the cities just to pad their bottom line how

do we fight back against the assault on our hands and make sure that even prisoners are given the rights that they deserve. in screwed news here's something you might not know about the chicago teachers union strike that's now in its third day fox so-called news has a stake in it yes beyond the political stakes fox news as in this labor struggle is part of the g.o.p.'s megaphone and its war on organized labor fox so-called news also has a financial stake in it or at least fox's parent company rupert murdoch's news corp back in two thousand and ten news corp bought a ninety percent stake in a company called wireless generation which specializes in building databases to keep track of students' performances and guess where news corp and wireless generation found a customer to sell their educational products to the chicago public school system which spent three point four million dollars on wireless generation products today

thirty thousand teachers and school workers are out striking is the chicago public school system and all the news corp owned wireless generation products are purchased that might explain why fox has been particularly harsh on chicago teachers beyond of course their usual anti worker agenda now for more on this strike and what's really happening in chicago i'm joined by greg palast investigative journalist b.b.c. news and the guardian and author of the new book billionaires and ballot bandits how to steal an election in nine easy steps greg welcome back. glad to be with you tom thanks for joining us tell us about the worst teacher in chicago. well yeah i mean i'm from chicago and i want to disclose that i work with the labor unions there including the chicago teachers union know a lot of teachers and one for example. i've known for many many years has over twenty years teaching experience said she wanted to go and teach english in a poor school without was a mistake she went in on her pay because she had

a master's degree twenty plus years seniority all these high performance ratings because of that her salary was close to seventy thousand a year the school got bad marks no kidding some of the kids don't have breakfast because they're dodging bullets near cabrini green and so the school was closed because it was a bad school meaning it or kids and all the teachers were fired they had to blame someone all teachers were fired and despite the seniority they said ok so she was out of bad school she must've been a bad teacher so she was not allowed to take another regular position with the chicago city schools instead down the road there was another school a charter school opened up now they were able to get someone who really had a wonderful reputation tremendous experience high degrees and they were willing to work at twenty nine thousand dollars a year or less as you can guess it was the same teacher the chart schools are being filled with the same teachers that they said were bad and incompetent and now

they're going to the wonderful charter schools that mayor rahm emanuel is set up except they're taking salary cuts of thirty forty and fifty percent and after i published a story today we got a dozen teachers who told the same story what i'm not doing prize greg this is not a democratic versus republican issue is not i mean democrats and drinking the same kool-aid i think. well reprint flavors ok the democrats want states officer chartered schools for a few kids and just keep in mind what that means that means that most kids will be left in the uncharted waters no life jackets and whatever that system throws them so a charter school means that the rest of the system is unchartered and the charter school systems this charter schools have been a complete disaster but for the most part they're just the same teachers paid less were not a good mood about it the second the republicans though have a different idea they want charter schools which are totally privatized and are

outside the government system well that's very nice they have something called valid shares but a value or something like where they cover the cost what they really mean is a coupon i can tell you that mitt romney's school. cost thirty eight thousand dollars a year not including the polls sticks in the horse ok there is not one not one private school in new york city that's less than twenty eight thousand dollars a year yet the air rick boucher that states have been giving out is three thousand except for washington d.c. seven now it's another to go to cranbrook for a few weeks and their rights and these are basically subsidies to people who are wealthy enough to put their kids in private schools which leaves the people who are not wealthy enough with their kids in the public schools which is basically creating a system that produces a ghetto ization of our schools. it's all about privatisation the teachers in chicago it's very important understand have accepted the wage the meagre wage offer

of a couple percent raise a year doesn't even keep up with inflation but they are told that they're supposed to lose their pay for experience so we were we actually want an experienced teachers and they're told that they would lose their extra pay for advanced degrees in advanced training and the words we want inexperienced uncredentialed teachers that's what they want and why so you just got back news corp it's all about privatizing computerizing a robot ties in the schools because universal education no one wants to support it anymore neither party is going to support it anymore and it and the republicans are ready to jump it immediately by saying here's a cute i get it go find it it's almost like they want you know i mean obamacare depends on for profit health insurance companies it's almost like they want to end up with something that looks like that that's all for profit schools we've got about forty seconds great yeah well you know the problem is that the billionaires really don't want to pay for kids' education whose job simply be to stack the boxes

from china to put in a wal-mart warehouse. very well said greg palast thanks a lot for being with us tonight. thank you and keep up the great work. and the best of the rest of the news earlier in the summer we told you about the trans-pacific partnership a new so-called free trade deal that the u.s. has been negotiating over with eight pacific nations for the last two years but rather than helping americans or improving the american economy the t p p would give foreign transnational corporations unprecedented power to abuse american workers to pollute our environment and destabilize our markets when information on the team he was first linked to very few americans knew what it was and. as a result there was very little opposition towards fast forward a couple of months and that seems to have changed this week in leesburg virginia

a u.s. trade negotiator met with members of the other eight nations for the fourteenth round of negotiations and for the first time the meeting was also met by protesters joining me now to discuss more about the rise of opposition of the t.p.s. laurel sutherland forrest communications manager for the rainforest action network or a welcome thanks for having me tom thanks for joining us tell it what what was going on in leesburg this week well it's been a very exciting week started off on sunday with a large and spirited rally with about fifty different organizations indorsing really trying to get the word out and protest many different angles of the transpacific partnership we had for example we had union groups there the communication workers of america were well represented we had occupy activists as well as leaders of many different environmental organizations i'm with rain forest action network we also had friends of the earth and sierra club so it's really it's so what is it what is it about t p p that you're concerned about the trans-pacific partnership is you know referred to as a free trade agreement but the reality is that the majority of the tax has nothing

to do with trade between nations most of it reads like a corporate wish list for transnational corporations to get newly established rights and privileges while at the same time weakening the ability of nation states to oppose them how many corporations are involved drafting this are well you know i don't know i know that there are six hundred corporate lobbyists who have been among the only people allowed so far to see the tax well so even while the general public civil society members of the media and even high ranking members of congress have not been allowed to see the basic material that's being negotiated leaked anonymous or wiki leaks it was wiki leaks that's right well two of the twenty six chapters have been leaked and so you know that's how we know what we know but you know after three years only these six hundred corporate lobbyists have been able to see this text and you know it's extremely concerning because these are people who. who are motivated by a clear profit agenda they are there representing corporate industry interests and there is no one at the table representing workers representing the environment or

for any other issue you know health and safety from from the one nine hundred twenty s. when one woodrow wilson's first started talking about the league of nations to literally today conservatives and republicans have been opposed to the league of nations in the united nations because it's a surrender of sovereignty we sign a series of treaties and agreements when we join the united nations that basically say we can't unilaterally declare war on somebody. in less were attacked you know where there are certain there are now wools for war so we gave up some of our sovereignty why are these conservatives or republicans not equally freaked out about giving up our economic sovereignty that that's something that seems like it's going to affect as a hell of a lot more then someday we need may need to fight a war i sure wish i had an answer for that i think this is one of those rare issues that is clearly as should be as aggravating to the right as it is to the left i do think this is even more aggravating to them if they're all freaked out about american sovereignty yeah this is

a thinly disguised globalized power grab by the world's wealthiest elite and there's you know it's hard to look at it any other way you know this this would agreement would essentially establish a parallel system of governance a series of tribunals whereby corporations would be put on equal standing with nation states and that's what nafta has done to will radically and we've seen the results of that you know they're you know almost one hundred percent of the cases that there's an environmental issue or a health or safety issues like a dolphin safe tuna you know we the american humane society fought for twenty four years to get that in the into law and then you know after we sign after the mexican government comes and says you can't do that or the corporations actually yeah it would it would be an extraordinary transfer of power into the hands of private for profit you know agenda driven industry the likes of which you know the world maybe has never seen as the obama administration and you know they're participating in this had they come out and said anything out loud about it well no. and i mean i can only guess that strategic you know this this is a plan that was hatched under the second bush administration but it has been embraced and nurtured into maturity by the obama administration and this is a u.s.

led effort and you know this member of the administration who is behind this so you know there is definitely a strong sentiment amongst the coalition that's been gathered this week to oppose this agreement that there's some sort of political calculation to try to get as much of this agreement finalized in the next two months as possible you know banking on the fact that environmental groups and union groups are going to want to oppose the democratic president you know running for election so it's really scary stuff you know it in just about anybody if you're a human being and if you care about you know health or safety or internet freedom or the environment extinction you know jobs being outsourced basically if you're arkansas governor if you're a human being and you know paper fiction and this is going to have something in it that is going to threaten what you care about keep up the great work tell us all about the thanks so much for being with us and i appreciate you. coming up all across this country the nation's prisons are being watched off by private corporations putting a bottom line on human law is on time we stop treating prisoners like profit

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our first comment that i come some art opposed to the thom hartmann dot com message boards you had this question on how energy independence might work and we talked about nationalizing the energy sector dictating who gets to do the drilling mining and fracking dictating who the drillers miners and fractures can sell their products to a world market and we have some trade agreements a deal with these things just asking. ok first of all it's untangle that our trade agreements have to do with what we do with other countries so we can set that aside with regard to the fossil fuels that we have here in the united states that's coal oil or gas we made the decision a long time ago that if they were on private property that the property owners own what was underneath their land i'm a person of the opinion that all that stuff should be nationalized and most

countries many countries do this and do a very successful it works for everybody in the country and i think that if we nationalize all our you know basically alaska did this this is this is the sarah and pale the sarah palin strategy every year when she was governor sarah palin sent a check out for about two thousand dollars to every each to every person in alaska it was the revenue that came from the oil because they had basically nationalize the oil they said you know this is our oil we're going to charge you for it we should be doing that nationwide the next comment of the night comes from dennis he had this question about the fed. would you give me some idea as to how you would replace the fed and with what you said something about this the other day i did not get the full information thanks. here's my take on the fed the fed if the fed is a private separate corporation that we're where some of the members that run it are appointed by by our president but by the executive branch which basically is a private corporation that handles our money that makes our money the runs our money and i think that's a that's a mistake and in fact the u.s.

government when we want to borrow money if the fed is going to you know for example quantitative easing where the fed buys treasuries they can't buy them directly from the federal government they have to go through one of the big banks to do it so the banks make billions on these things on our multi-trillion dollar debt frankly my opinion is that what we should do is we should take the fed as it is and bring it on to the a.g.'s of the of the treasury department and say ok this is now part of the treasury department the secretary of treasury is the person running the fed from now on no more private corporation and take all those banks that own the fed all the federal reserve banks around the country on the fed and the and the banks that own stock in them and just say you guys are on your own are final comment the night comes from trenchcoat bob post our message boards this is his take on investments i think that investments now only work for the mega wealthy the rest of us are sometimes suckered into buying investments are usually screwed this seems to not only be true on wall street but also with people's pensions and general retirement benefits the mega wealthy wants to invest so that they can gamble with

their money and never risk their own well yes that's what happens when you do regulate wall street banking used to be since nine hundred thirty five a boring predictable consistently profitable but only slightly business people would go into banking and they'd know that do you know a good celery elbow works you know for thirty forty years and retire and everything will be fine and you know it's a good middle class or even upper middle class job and then it got deregulated at the end of the clinton ministration and the banks years went nuts and now you've got you've got at least a dozen banks new york city who are making over a. billion dollars a year that's of the be a thousand million dollars a year personally each one of them and they're paying a maximum fifteen percent income tax on that money same way that romney does this is insane we need to reregulate our banks and take them back to being regular boring consistent conventional businesses that you know are profitable in an ok

business but not a casino and that's it for your take my take tonight if you'd like your comments and questions or in this segment the big picture listen up we want to know your to send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page via twitter at tom underscore her or in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our rant line at two two by three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the ear. it's the good the bad and the very very and trap tisha slee ugly the good john archer archer is a republican candidate for the u.s. house from iowa when asked by a reporter if he differs from the republican party on any issues archer replied i believe the party platform calls for the death penalty and i'm personally opposed

to the death penalty end of quote he went on to say that while working as a clerk at the illinois supreme court he had seen quote firsthand how we as americans have put innocent people to death and how life is too precious to do that end of quote finally a conservative saying that we need to abolish the death penalty back to the matter is archer's absolutely right this country has put dozens of people to death who were innocent of the crimes they were convicted for and we've even put people to death who are mentally challenged which is a violation of our constitutional rights it's time we said no to the death penalty for good or bad senator rand paul during an interview with sean hannity paul compared the u.s. . government's decision to reclaim some stolen property some stolen coins to nazi germany's confiscation of jews property in the one nine hundred thirty s. a set of ten double eagle gold coins were illegally removed stolen from the u.s. mint and the government recently found the coins that sued the woman who had. her

grandfather worked in the mint back then saying that they were u.s. property a judge recently found in the government's favor regardless comparing the u.s. government to nazi germany was a bit much from senator paul that again we've come to expect these kind of outrageous and sensitive statements right and the very very ugly mitt romney the man who could be president of the united states apparently doesn't understand or care about foreign policy in an interview with buzz feed published yesterday morning romney adviser robert o'brian said speaking about the obama campaign that quote it doesn't surprise me that they're raising foreign policy because it's another distraction from the administration's terrible economic record and if mr o'brien and his boss don't realize is that if you become president as states you have to deal with other nations and other international leaders you have to help calm tensions around the globe and work with other nations to achieve common goals if mitt romney is elected president we can have our first president who is not just

inept in foreign policy but who doesn't even care about it and that is very very ugly. tension cash strapped states the largest for profit prison corporation america has one hell of a deal for you only which is you have to begin imprisoning your own citizens at an alarmingly high rate and you have to keep in jail for twenty years that's the offer coming from the corrections corporation of america in a two hundred fifty million dollars proposal sent to prison officials in forty eight states across the nation deal works like this state sell their prisons off to the corrections corporation of america in the c.c.a.

for a you know it which is a multi-billion dollar for profit corporation it's already operating sixty six prison facilities across the nation c.c.a. pays the state a lump sum off the bat for the prison for example in ohio c.c.a. paid the state seventy two million dollars to take over and run the lake erie correctional institution which the state built from that point on the state will then pay c.c.a. a couple million dollars a year to manage the facility which the state paid to build and c.c.a. just bought for a song sort of sounds like a crummy deal but c.c.a. and proponents of prison privatization argue that this deal is going to save states a bunch of money unfortunately that's not true as a recent study out of the out of arizona by the tucson citizen shows selling off public prisons to know what for profit corporations actually costs taxpayers in arizona an extra three and a half million dollars a year although in the initial privatization sale of the prison republican governor

jan brewer did get a few million she could use to make it seem like her budget was balanced and then future generations are going to have to pay it back so they. it is a crummy deal not only that for profit prison corporations like c.c.a. haven't proven themselves to be any better at running prisons than state governments for example in idaho c.c.s. prison facility saw far more violence than the nearby state run prison between two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight there were forty two recorded assaults at the state run ohio state correctional institution forty two during that same period at c.c.s. idaho corrections center there are a whopping one hundred thirty two records souls three or four times more so not only is c.c.a. overcharging taxpayers for their services which is why c.c.'s c.e.o. damon entered or was able to make more than three million dollars last year but c.c.a. prisons are far more violent too which makes you wonder why mostly republican state lawmakers and governors would fall for it the answer money

a lot of money in the last ten years c.c.a. has spent more than seven teen million dollars lobbying for lucrative prison contracts and tougher laws to throw more people in prison also in the last ten years c.c.a. has given nearly two million dollars to various political candidates so that explains that but there's even a much darker side to this prison privatization plan than just crony capitalism buying off politicians and wasting taxpayer dollars it's also a form of predatory capitalism as part of c.c.s. deal to buy public prisons the state has to promise to keep those prisons at least ninety percent whole our states have to promise to lock up as many people as the corporations contract demands even if crime is down even if there are fewer robberies or drug crimes or assaults prison population still has to remain high since c.c.a. turns a profit off each inmate they need to make sure there's

a lot of citizens locked up. so let's think about what's happening here by handing off our prisons to the private market we've suddenly injected the profit motive into our criminal justice system it's no longer about keeping americans safe from crime and it's no longer about giving americans who do mess up a second chance and saving them from under punishment is now strictly about making a buck that's why c.c.a. has lobbied for stricter drug laws and stricter and a immigration laws those laws don't make us any safer but they do lead to more people being thrown in prison and therefore more profits for corporations like c.c.a. we have state local police forces preying on the citizens they're supposed to be serving and protecting because a contract with a for profit prison corporation forces them to do so again this is predatory capitalism and it's the reason why the commons are so important historically

prisons have belonged to we the people they belong to the commons administered for the public good by our democratic republic not corporations like c.c.a. that are unaccountable to we the people and only focused on profit plain and simple when it comes to things that deal with human beings the deal with human lives life liberty in the pursuit of happiness the profit motive should not be number one like the corporate free market dictates in fact the profit motive shouldn't even be a motive at all motive number one should be the good of society and the good of the people it's time to reclaim the commons. and that's the way it is tonight wednesday september twelfth two thousand and twelve if you missed any and tonight's show you can now watch it in h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash in the big picture for more information in the stories we covered visit our website thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and . also check out our two youtube channels there are links at tom hartman dot com

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